Conventionally, optical connectors in each of which a ferrule is connected to an optical fiber have been used in order to connect optical fibers while relaying lights therebetween. In order to reduce transmission loss between optical waveguides in connection, it is necessary for the optical connectors to be configured such that the ferrules are connected while facing each other in an accurate manner. In particular, high connection accuracy is required for the optical waveguides formed by a multi core optical fiber or a plurality of optical fibers.
For example, Patent Document 1(Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-197817) discloses an optical connector capable of easily and precisely positioning optical fibers and optical elements using ferrules.
Patent Document 2 (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-040264) discloses an optical connector capable of inserting and pulling a plurality of optical connectors at the same time.
On the other hand, in accordance with recent increases in the amount of communications using optical communications, a communication system in which a plurality of optical waveguides are aggregated has been provided. For example, there has been provided a large-scale optical waveguide integrated system in which a plurality of system boards, to each of which an optical fiber is connected, are connected to a single backplane board.
In such an optical waveguide integrated system, integration density of the optical waveguides is increased by horizontally mounting a plurality of the system boards on a system rack or the like and connecting the system boards to the backplane board that is orthogonal to the system boards.
Further, in such an optical waveguide integrated system, opto-electric conversion is performed in system boards and the system boards and the backplane board are electrically connected by electrical connectors, respectively.
However, in order to handle light signals in the backplane board, it is necessary to use the optical connectors as explained above for passing the light signal to the backplane board without performing the opto-electric conversion. For such a system in which optical connectors are additionally provided, an operator who attaches the system boards to the backplane board has to, first, fix the system boards by sliding the system boards into slots of the system rack, and then, has to serially connect the optical connectors while taking care of bending or the like of the optical fibers.
For example, Patent Document 3 (Japanese translation of PCT international application No. 2004-520604) discloses a connector that optically connects a first board and a second board orthogonal to each other.
However, when optical waveguides provided to boards are connected by the conventional optical connector disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 3, if the spaces between the system boards are narrowed in order to increase integration density of the system boards, it is difficult for an operator to insert and pull the optical connector to cause reduction of workability. In particular, when inserting or pulling one of the system boards that are already attached to the rack, workability of inserting and pulling the connector becomes worse due to the adjacent system boards, and thus, it is necessary to retain the spaces between the system boards to a certain extent.
Further, generally, connection accuracy between the system rack and the system boards is lower than connection accuracy between optical connectors. Thus, it was difficult to connect optical connectors at the same time with attaching the boards like a case in which the system boards are attached to the backplane board using the electrical connectors.
[Patent Document]    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-197817    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-040264    [Patent Document 3] Japanese translation of PCT international application No. 2004-520604